The Canon MP160 printer connected via USB to my Windows XP computer has recently started to malfunction. Instead of printing an entire page, it prints a few lines on one page, then a few more on the next page, and so on. This can usually be fixed by deleting and then reinstalling the printer, however when I attempt to print a second document it returns to the unusual behaviour. I attempted to diagnose the problem, thinking that it was trigged when printing a web page or PDF file, but it even occurs when printing a Word document. Do you have any suggestions for how this problem could be fixed?

This is certainly a strange problem, and making it more difficult to diagnose is that the problem stops for the first print job after reinstalling the printer, but then occurs again on the second and subsequent jobs. In order to diagnose such problems we should conduct a series of tests to narrow down the cause of the problem. To begin, print some documents so you can trigger the problem. At this point the printer should be exhibiting the unusual behaviour of printing a few lines, then feeding a new page and printing a few more lines, and so on. Once this happens, we will try printing a Windows printer test page to see whether that also encounters the problem. The printer test page is a very generic print job sent from Windows itself, rather than a specific application. As such, this will allow us to determine whether the problem is related to applications having problems transmitting their jobs to the printer, or whether there is an underlying problem with the printer driver installed in Windows, or potentially the printer itself. Go to the “Start” menu > “Printers and Faxes”. In the Printers and Faxes window that appears, right-click on your printer and select “Properties”. In the Printer Properties window click the “General” tab. Down the bottom you should see a button labelled “Print Test Page”. Click this button. A confirmation box will appear asking whether the print job correctly printed – click “Yes” regardless of what happens (if you click “No” the Windows Printer Troubleshooting wizard will appear to help, but this will not be particularly useful for the problem you are experiencing). Check whether the test page prints correctly.

If the test page does print correctly, there is some kind of application problem. This will be tricky to diagnose, particularly because the problem occurs across different applications, so encountering this scenario is relatively unlikely. So if you have encountered this scenario then please contact me again for additional advice. It would also be useful if you could include the names of the applications which you know are affected by the problem.

In the more likely scenario that the printer test page also suffers the same problem, it seems that there is a general issue with the Windows printer driver or the printer itself. Now we need to narrow down the problem as either being caused by Windows or there being a problem with the printer itself. As a test, we will now try printing a page from the printer itself, rather than sending a job from the computer. I read through the manual for the MP160 printer as I was hoping that the printer has a demo page functionality, whereby the printer can print a demo or test page itself. However, there does not appear to be such a function on this model of printer. It may be worthwhile for you to check through the menus on the printer to see whether there is any such functionality, but the manual does not mention anything. In the absence of a demo or test page print facility we can try doing a nozzle check on the printer. This will print out a nozzle check pattern which is normally used to make sure the ink is being correctly ejected from the cartridge nozzles. On the physical printer press the “Maintenance” button until appears on the screen and then press “Black” or “Color” to print the nozzle check pattern.

As the first step in troubleshooting a software-related fault you should download and install the latest drivers for the printer. At the time of writing the latest drivers are version 1.10b (released on 13th June 2008) and are available for download from www.canon.com.au/products/all_in_one_printers/all_in_one_printers/mp160_support.aspx . Before installing these new drivers, I suggest that you uninstall the printer from your computer, then follow the instructions with the drivers to complete a brand new setup from scratch.

If installing the latest drivers does not fix the problem then it is possible that something running in the background is conflicting with the print jobs. We will disable all processes from loading on your computer and then restart the computer, which will mean that no programs or processes are running in the background, to check whether the problem stops. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “msconfig” (without the quotes) and click OK. In the System Configuration Utility window that appears click the “Startup” tab. This lists all the programs and processes which load on Windows startup. Write down the name of all the processes which are enabled (ticked). This is important so we know which processes to re-enable later. Once this has been done click the “Disable all” button and then OK. Restart the computer and check whether the problem continues. If the problem does not continue, the problem was one of those processes. Now, go back into the System Configuration Utility and re-enable one of the processes that were previously disabled, then click OK and restart the computer. Again, check whether the problem occurs. Keep repeating this procedure until the problem does start occurring again at which point you know the most recently enabled process is causing the problem. At that point you can re-enable all processes except that one process.

Having disabled all the processes and the problem still continues a background process is not causing the problem. At this point you should first re-enable all the processes that you disabled and then restart the computer, so that all the startup processes are back up and running. At this point my thinking is that there is a greater problem within Windows or some kind of corruption or misconfiguration. As a starting point, we should run the System File Checker. This will check for any missing or corrupt Windows system files and replace these with known good copies. Go to the “Start” menu > “Run” and type “sfc /scannow” (without the quotes, but mind the space between sfc and /scannow) then click OK. The SFC utility will launch and immediately start operations. Once the SFC has finished operations it will exit silently with no user feedback. Once this has happened, restart the computer then reinstall the printer and check whether the problem continues.

Should the problem continue then please contact me again for further advice, as we will need to do some additional investigations into this rather persistent issue.